Never Forget

by Michel Bussi

“Ten years ago, but it’s all the locals talk about. Coincidences like that are hard to ignore, don’t you agree? The rape, the naked swim in the sea, the torn red dress . . .”

  I paused a moment too long.

  “The red cashmere scarf,” Piroz finished for me. “Same murder weapon for both crimes . . .” He stared me straight in the eye. “You can rest assured, Monsieur Salaoui, we are aware of the similarities with the Morgane Avril case. But as you know, that murder took place ten years ago . . . Right now, if you don’t mind, let’s focus on the murder of Magali Verron.”

  Piroz turned to a new page of his file, as if to give me time to think. I dived in as quickly as I could:

  “Magali was alive when I met her on the clifftop. I must have disturbed her rapist, he didn’t have time to strangle her. Not completely . . .”

  The captain looked at me for a long time. His forehead wrinkled into a V, forming an arrow pointing at the report in front of him.

  “The medical examiner takes a different view, Monsieur Salaoui. The results of the autopsy show that Magali was asphyxiated and then thrown over the edge . . .”

  Piroz forced a smile before continuing:

  “But there is, I grant you, one area of doubt, a discrepancy of a few minutes. We’ll talk about that another time, once the details have been confirmed. In the meantime, Monsieur Salaoui. I want you to talk me through your encounter with Magali Verron this morning.”

  The captain recorded every detail. The exact location. The torn dress. The few words Magali said to me:

  Don’t come any closer.

  If you take so much as a step, I’ll jump . . .

  You could never understand. Keep running.

  Go! Get out of here, now!

  I described the look on Magali’s face, every move she made.

  It took more than ten minutes for Piroz to note it all down.

  “Good. Very good, Monsieur Salaoui.”

  He leaned forward and, with the tip of his index finger, adjusted the five-millimetre pilot at the helm of the Étoile-de-Noël so that he was no longer leaning to one side.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, let’s talk about you.”

  He opened his green folder. On the first page I saw the logo of the Saint Antoine Therapeutic Institute.

  Damn!

  Piroz went for the jugular.

  “You work in an asylum, Monsieur Salaoui?”

  “No, Captain. The Saint Antoine is a therapeutic and educational facility. Our students aren’t insane, they’re just young people with physical and behavioural disorders.”

  “Are you part of the educational staff?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “The therapeutic side of things?”

  “No, I’m responsible for maintenance. Vehicles, carpentry, plumbing, anything that needs fixing. The facility is eight hundred square metres in area, with a garden three times that, and a fleet of six Citroën vans.”

  The captain had stopped taking notes; he wasn’t interested in my duties.

  “Have you been at the Saint Antoine Institute for long?”

  Have you been there, not have you worked there. I knew exactly what he was insinuating and I’d had enough of his games. My prosthesis scraped the floor as I shifted in my chair.

  “Let me spell it out for you, Captain. I didn’t spend my childhood in the Institute. I wasn’t some insane inmate who was kept on because the staff didn’t know what else to do with him when he turned eighteen. I am a qualified building maintenance officer. They hired me six years ago.”

  Piroz blew in the direction of the ship’s mast as if to get rid of a speck of dust. For a moment he watched the paper sails swell, then immersed himself in the file again.

  “Here we go: Recruited in 2008 as part of a drive to get more disabled employees on the payroll. Your employers have given me all the details.”

  This bastard was out to get me. I could tell from his attitude which parts of my CV had leapt out at him as they’d been highlighted with a neon marker.

  Jamal Salaoui.

  Arab. Disabled. Works with mad kids . . .

  Ideal profile for a rapist.

  Mentally I added a new category to my list of everyday torturers: vicious gods, sadistic teachers, fascist little bosses, bigoted cops . . .

  “Monsieur Salaoui, we’ve been in contact with your immediate superior, Monsieur Jérôme Pinelli.”

  “He’s on holiday!”

  For the first time Piroz almost cracked a smile, revealing his yellowing teeth.

  “I got through to him in Courchevel. He was in the ski-lift on his way to the Jockeys black piste. He confirmed it.”

  What did he confirm? I seethed, waiting for him to elaborate.

  “Your identity, Monsieur Salaoui. Your role at the Saint Antoine Institute. One point in your favour, you don’t have a criminal record—you couldn’t work with special needs youngsters if you didn’t have a clean record. Having said that . . .”

  I suppressed the urge to send all the miniature figures on the deck of the Étoile-de-Noël into orbit with a flick of my fingers.

  “What?”

  “Jérôme Pinelli has expressed reservations.”

  What had that asshole been saying now?

  “Reservations?”

  “He was telling me about Ophélie Parodi. A fifteen-year-old girl who has spent the last eighteen months at the Institute.”

  Two-faced bastard! Sitting on his ski lift, making accusations. He and Piroz must have hit it off straight away.

  “He implied that you were very close to little Ophélie, much too close, according to the psychologists at the Institute. You were reprimanded about it several times . . .”

  Maybe instead of aiming a flick of the fingers at those miniature sailors I should crush all three masts with my fist, just for the pleasure of seeing Piroz’s reaction.

  But I remained surprisingly calm. Soothed, perhaps, by the thought of Ophélie.

  “You need to check your sources, Captain. An office manager isn’t always best placed to comment. Many of my colleagues would take a very different view to Jérôme Pinelli. But . . . I don’t understand what my job at the Institute has to do with the death of Magali Verron. Let’s get to the point, Captain. Am I being accused of pushing that girl off the cliff? Of raping her?”

  Piroz slowly ran his hand over his hair. That bastard had been waiting for a reaction from me. He took his time closing the green file, making me wait for his response.

  “Take it easy, Monsieur Salaoui. For the moment, you are the chief witness in a case that is turning out to be very complicated. You are the only one who saw Magali Verron jump of her own free will. The only one to suggest it was suicide, despite the findings of the medical examiner . . .”

  “‘For the moment?’”

  “To be frank, Monsieur Salaoui, given the evidence at my disposal, I could take you into custody right now.”

  I fell back into my chair, stunned.

  “You’re a fast runner, Monsieur Salaoui, even on one leg—it’s in your file. If you’re the rapist and I let you go . . .”

  Piroz felt that he had seized the advantage. He wasn’t holding back.

  “So before you go accusing me of harassment, Monsieur Salaoui, you should think very carefully. I’m going to take a chance and let you remain at liberty until the DNA results are in. I’ll see you again tomorrow, two P.M., in this office.”

  With that he sprang to his feet, picked up the green file, and then walked around the desk to stand behind me.

  “What happened to you, Monsieur Salaoui?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your leg.”

  I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.

  On Piroz’s desk, a loose sheet was lying on top of a stack of files. It was blank apar
t from a table made up of eight numbers arranged in four squares:

  I was intrigued. Was it some kind of brainteaser? Was Piroz filling the remaining months until his retirement with Sudoku puzzles?”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Monsieur Salaoui.”

  I had to crane my neck to speak to him.

  “A mistake, Captain. A policeman shot at me. I was making my getaway after robbing the BNP, Rue Soufflot, in the 5th Arrondissement. I was a fast runner in those days, but not fast enough. I got away with it because I was wearing a Betty Boop mask so they couldn’t identify me . . .”

  “Are you taking the piss?”

  “I’m playing it down.”

  Piroz shrugged, stepped forward and opened a drawer.

  “While we’re on the subject of Betty Boop . . .”

  He tossed an old copy of Playboy into my lap.

  “Go next door and fill a sample jar for me.”

  “With sperm?”

  “What do you think? Crème Chantilly? Yes, with sperm.”

  Piroz’s request struck me as almost surreal.

  “Is this the normal procedure?”

  “What’s the problem? You want me to hold it for you?”

  “And if I refuse?”

  The captain sighed. “Surely it’s not in your interest to refuse, Salaoui—unless that’s your sperm in Magali Verron’s vagina? And before you go, I’m also going to need fingernail and hair samples from you for DNA testing.”

  I rolled up the Playboy and got to my feet. He was right. I was blameless. Everything would be much simpler once they had compared my DNA with the rapist’s. Then I would make Piroz, Pinelli, and all the others eat their words . . .

  At least, that was what I thought.

  How could I have thought otherwise?

  My sperm, my hair, my fingernails . . .

  None of them had been in contact with that girl.

  Since then, I’ve thought a lot about the expression on Denise’s face when I told her about Morgane Avril’s suicide. As if she couldn’t believe I could be so naive . . .

  She was right.

  Naive.

  Being innocent, having harmed no one, being blameless—it isn’t enough.

  No smoke without fire. Forget proof, forget the truth, doubt always creeps in.

  In spite of everything.

  In spite of you?

  Because, on second thought, isn’t it easier to believe the cops and the forensic experts rather than a disabled Arab who works with crazy kids?

  9

  NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE?

  It doesn’t take five-cent coins . . . It swallows twenty-cent coins—I’ve tried. It will only accept one-euro coins, and it doesn’t give change,” said a woman’s voice behind me.

  I gave up on the drinks machine and turned to face her.

  “The cops are all crooks,” she added.

  It was the red-haired girl. She smiled at me, her pink lips slightly parted over milky teeth. With her bright black eyes and little turned-up nose, she reminded me of a shrew. All she needed was some fine nylon whiskers protruding from the freckles on her cheeks.

  I returned her smile. “Too right,” I said.

  Following her advice, I put in a one-euro coin and selected an Americano without sugar. She held out her plastic cup. I tapped mine against it.

  “They’ve kept me waiting for forty-five minutes. What about you?”

  “I’ve finished . . . For today, at least. But I think I’m going to have to take out a season ticket . . .”

  I watched as she lapped at her drink with a little pink tongue. It called to mind the calendars my mother would hang over the kitchen sink every year, with pictures of kittens drinking from bowls of milk, girls in tutus around a piano. My first erotic photographs.

  The girl looked at me curiously.

  “What are you here for?”

  I hesitated for a second, barely more than that.

  “I’m a witness. A girl threw herself off Yport cliff. I was there right before she jumped, but there was nothing I could do.”

  She pursed her lips. Her mousy eyes clouded.

  “That’s awful. Do they . . . do they know why she did it?”

  “They have their suspicions. According to the investigation, she was raped just before she committed suicide. The rapist tried to strangle her as well.”

  “My God . . .”

  The little shrew put a hand over her incisors, as if frightened, then immediately recovered. She obviously enjoyed play-acting.

  “At least you’re not the rapist?”

  It was the kind of no-holds-barred repartee I shared with Ibou. I loved that blend of mischief and black humour.

  “No, I don’t think so. We’ll soon find out, I’ve just given the policeman my sperm . . .”

  She paused for a moment, as if imagining the scene in her head: a guy masturbating behind the curtain of the office next door, then studied me intently, her eyes dropping to my crotch without apparently noticing my artificial leg.

  Hats off, mademoiselle! But I was sure it was my disability that had attracted her. The fact I was different. She was the kind of girl who was drawn to anything that deviated from the norm. She stared at me with her deep black pupils.

  “Well that’s good news! If you are the rapist, I needn’t worry about you for a few minutes at least. The beast is sated.”

  I checked my watch. “Don’t underestimate me . . . Being sexually attacked in a police station would add a bit of spice, don’t you think?”

  I burst out laughing, but the little shrew wasn’t quite as brave as she let on. Her little white teeth attacked the plastic rim of the cup. Before she tore a hole in it, I went on:

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Why have the cops kept you waiting forty-five minutes?”

  By way of reply, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

  “I’m waiting for them to rubber-stamp this so I can collect pebbles from the beach.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She burst out laughing. “My turn to surprise you!”

  She held out her hand. “Mona Salinas. I may not look it, but I’m a boring postdoctoral fellow in experimental chemistry. I have a grant funded by P@nshee Computer Techonolo­gies, an Indo-American multinational specialising in electronic components for the computer industry . . .”

  “What does that have to do with pebbles?”

  She twisted the cup between her fingers. I wondered if she was nervous because of what I’d been saying about rape.

  “I’ll let you guess . . .” she taunted.

  The connection between computers and pebbles? No idea.

  Still, I pretended to be thinking. Oddly enough, I liked studious girls, the swats who were always top of the class. Most of the guys I hung out with in La Courneuve avoided them like the plague . . . Not me. I’d found that, once you got to know them, they were the most fun. And the least stuck-up. Mind you, it wasn’t often I got to talk to a girl who was a postdoctoral fellow in experimental chemistry.

  My little mouse was growing impatient.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  I nodded apologetically.

  “O.K.!” she said. “I’ll try to keep it short. Silicon is an essential component in the manufacture of computers. It’s a semiconductor, used in computer chips. You’ve heard of Silicon Valley in the United States? That’s where the name comes from, silicon, not from the gelatinous breasts of Californian women.”

  Inevitably, my eyes darted for a quarter of a second to her pert little breasts, white and sprinkled with freckles. Milk and honey.

  Like a tightrope-walker, I miraculously regained my balance on the thread of our conversation.

 
“I must be an idiot, but I still don’t see what that has to do with your pebbles.”

  She was amused by my puzzlement.

  “Patience. I’m getting there. Silicon, if you’re still following me, only appears in a single compact form in the natural state: pebbles! And English Channel pebbles have the highest level of silicon in the world.”

  “Really?”

  “Scientifically proven. Today, the world capital of pebbles is Cayeux-sur-Mer, in Picardy. But here in Normandy they claim their pebbles are even purer. The largest reserves of silicon in the world, both in terms of quality and quantity.”

  I thought of those endless grey pebbles washed by the waves, to the general indifference of passers-by. It was hard to believe they constituted a high-tech treasure trove.

  “And you need permission from the police to collect pebbles?”

  “Yes! A century ago they used thousands of tons to build the local roads, houses, and churches. But since then they’ve realised that the pebbles protect the cliffs, and everything built on top of them. So nowadays collection is strictly forbidden, unless you manage to obtain authorisation.”

  “Because you work for a big Indo-American multinational that might invest in the region, for example.”

  “You’ve got it. And I only take a few hundred pebbles. To give you an idea, the silicon used in electronics needs to be 99.9999999 percent pure.” Her mouth formed the 9s as if she were blowing little soap bubbles. “That’s the current standard, but P@nshee, my company, wants another two or three 9s. It’s my job to find out if we can gain a few extra 9s after the decimal point thanks to the pebbles of Fécamp, Yport, or Étretat.”

  “And you’ve got your chemistry set with you?”

  “Yes! A hammer, pliers, test tubes, a microscope, and a laptop crammed with complicated software . . .”

  I wanted to stay with her. I didn’t understand everything she was telling me—for all I knew, she was having me on with her talk of silicon and nine figures after the decimal point—but I liked it all the same! I loved the idea that something as stupid as a pebble might contain some unique treasure.

  We both emptied our cups in silence. I was leaving it to Mona to decide if she wanted to pursue this. All she had to do was ask my name and what I was doing in Yport, and I would take out the flyer for the Mont Blanc Ultra-Trail and tell her of the record-breaking feat I was planning.